Election 2018

A win for the resistance

The Democratic candidate cruised toward his coronation as the next governor of the world's fifth-largest economy on Tuesday.

"The future belongs to California," he said in a victory speech that rebuked President Trump without mentioning him. "It’s time to roll the credits on the politics of chaos and the politics of cruelty."

Now comes the hard part.

Reporters at CALmatters analyzed how the new governor would approach the state's most pressing issues. At the top of the list was the affordable housing crisis.

Newsom, 51, has pledged to build 3.5 million units of new housing by 2025, a goal critics have dismissed as preposterous. Rumors of a major housing package were already circulating around the Capitol.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein clinched her bid for a fifth term representing California in the U.S. Senate, in a race that pitted experience versus ideological purity. She defeated Kevin de León, a state senator three decades her junior, despite the California Democratic Party’s backing of his candidacy. "This state — the fifth-largest economic power on Earth, over 40 million people, bigger than 21 states and the District of Columbia put together — needs strong representation." Feinstein said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi greeted supporters at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington on Tuesday.

Jacquelyn Martin/A.P.

With the Democrats now in control of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi is poised to regain the speakership after eight years as minority leader — or face a reckoning over whether the 78-year-old is the right person to lead the Democrats in the Trump era. "Tomorrow will be a new day in America," she told cheering supporters in Washington.

The House races

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California Democrats had aimed to flip seven Republican districts that had favored Hillary Clinton. Republican Rep. David Valadao survived a challenge in the Central Valley, and Democrat Mike Levin had an early lead in his bid to capture the seat of outgoing Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. Other races were too close to call. A.P. | S.D. Union-Tribune

Rep. Devin Nunes, the San Joaquin Valley Republican, held a comfortable lead over his Democratic challenger, Andrew Janz. The fiercely contested seat was the most expensive congressional contest in the country. Fresno Bee

The propositions

Sunrise in San Luis Obispo. Most Californians favor an end to twice yearly clock changes.

Malcolm Carlaw

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Proposition 6: The effort to repeal an increase in California’s gas tax was headed for defeat. The repeal leader's plan B? Pick off Democrats one by one. S.D. Union-Tribune | CALmatters

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Proposition 7: Californians embraced a measure that would set a path toward year-round daylight saving time. The timing of the vote, two days after a clock reset, may have played a role in the outcome. A.P. | Mercury News

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Proposition 8: An initiative that would have capped dialysis charges was rejected. Dialysis companies had poured $111 million into the effort to defeat it. A.P. | L.A. Times

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Proposition 10: Voters also rejected a measure that would have let cities expand rent control, despite the housing crisis. Critics said it would take housing off the market. Sacramento Bee | L.A. Times

California candidates and political action committees spent more than $1 billion on 2018 political races, according to data from the nonpartisan California Target Book. The spending — including roughly $366 million on statewide initiatives and $307 million on congressional races — works out to about $50 per registered voter. "We’ve never seen anything like the money spent on these congressional races," a political science professor said.

San Francisco voters resoundingly backed the city's most contentious measure — Proposition C — which would tax big businesses to help the homeless. The vote fell short, however, of a two-thirds threshold, which seemed certain to invite legal challenges. Implementation could be delayed by months or even years.

A Coachella Valley Republican group blocked Desert Sun reporters from their election night party. The group's president, Joy Miedecke, explained: "Look, we’re tired of the lies. The Desert Sun keeps printing false information." Asked to cite one, she said the lies had been happening for so long she couldn’t recall any.

Nonelection roundup

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"Airbnb crime doesn’t pay." A well-heeled couple agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle claims that they turned 14 San Francisco apartments into illegal hotels through the vacation-rental service. The couple had been ordered to stop before, but apparently couldn't resist the lucrative listings. They earned $700,000 in profit in less than a year.

Roaming Disneyland's mouse kingdom is a hidden world of feral cats. With names like Snickers, Sammy, and Pepper, the cats live largely by their wits and have attracted fans who make an adventure of trying to spot them. They've got a website as well as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts.

A fundraiser that was started to help a Los Angeles County music teacher who punched a high school student reached a staggering $135,000 on Tuesday. The student had thrown a basketball at the 64-year-old teacher and taunted him with a racial slur. One parent told CBS News that she would “have done the exact same thing."

The Great Western Loop is a nearly 7,000-mile footpath that traverses some of the American West's most beautiful terrain — dipping into nine states, 12 national parks, and more than 75 wilderness areas. Only one person has ever completed the route. Now, a second hiker, 27-year-old Jeff Garmire, is roughly 700 miles from becoming No. 2. He's been posting updates on Instagram.

A lot of people cringe at the nickname "Frisco." As the columnist Herb Caen once explained, "Frisco shows disrespect for a city that is now big and proper and respectable." But why the hate? A Stanford linguist suggested classism was at work: "It’s something like knowing exactly where to put your forks at the end of a meal."

Opened in 1907, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk was the creation of a brash showman who dreamed of creating a "Coney Island of the West." It was a huge success, and still operates today as California's original amusement park. Two rides — a wooden roller coaster and a carousel — are national historic landmarks. USA Today readers named it the best beach boardwalk in America.

Richard Ramirez displayed a pentagram on his hand in court on Oct. 25, 1985.

Los Angles Public Library

Richard Ramirez was a devil-worshipping drifter who killed at least 14 people in Southern California in the mid-1980s. Dubbed the "night stalker," he entered homes at night, seemingly at random, then killed the men and raped the women he found inside. It was on this day in 1989 that Ramirez was sentenced to be put to death. Cancer did the job instead, killing him in 2013.